


like a song that goes around in my head

by dinnfameron



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Kinda, M/M, Nothing explicit, POV Alternating, Patrick Brewer is a Troll, Patrick Brewer loves David Rose, Songfic, oops it got soft, patrick brewer sings, rating is for language, trolling as a love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28471056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinnfameron/pseuds/dinnfameron
Summary: Patrick notices that there're a lot of songs about roses. And that David hates having them sung at him when he least expects it. So Patrick makes sure to never, ever do that.aka Patrick's Level of Trolling is Directly Proportional to How Much He Adores David Rose
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 62
Kudos: 189





	like a song that goes around in my head

**Author's Note:**

> "Patrick would absolutely have an entire playlist of songs with rose in the title just to be a dick" is a thing that I said somewhere one time, then added the idea to my idea list and promptly forgot about it. Until this week when it decided it was ready to be written. Big ups to the retail associates at the BB for all the sprints and encouragement.
> 
> I am a wee little baby bit drunk on this New Year's Eve so mistakes are likely a thing. Go easy on me, please.

**Track 1**

The first time it happens is an accident, Patrick swears.

 _“Just like every night has its dawn, just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song, every r-_ ”

“Alright, could we not?” David says beside him. Patrick cuts his eyes from the road to peer over at his fiancé in the passenger seat. He’s sporting that mildly amused, mildly annoyed expression that Patrick loves with his entire being, _especially_ when he’s the one who put it there. But it’s leaning more toward the annoyed end of the spectrum, and Patrick isn’t sure what he _did_ to put it there, which feels like a problem. He nudges the volume down on the radio.

“What?”

David gives him a significant Look. “Every Rose Has Its Thorn? What is this, like, some sort of commentary on my thorny personality?”

Oh. Patrick hadn’t even noticed. He wasn’t a Poison fan, per se, but he certainly knew their songs. This song, anyway. He’d been singing along mindlessly, hadn’t even realized the implication, but now that he knew it was riling David up…

“Hm. Or is it a statement on your barbed wit?” he offers.

“Or maybe I’m the rose, and _you’re_ the thorn. Like, in my side,” David counters, his dimple popping out as he tries (fails) to hold his smile back.

“Maybe,” Patrick concedes. “You know, now that I think about it, there’re a lot of songs about roses. Or with rose in the title.”

“Yes, I’m well aware. I may have been serenaded by a few well-intentioned yet clueless paramours over the years.” David waves a hand like the suitors are all lined up in front of him, and he’s gesturing at them for Patrick’s benefit.

“That must have been a hardship. I know how you feel about people singing at you.” Patrick lays his hand, palm up, over the center console. David slides his hand into it, and Patrick gives him a comforting squeeze.

“That is only acceptable in one very specific context. As in, only you, only good songs, and never without advance notice. You know that.”

“Oh, I do.”

+++++

**Track 2**

The second time is definitely pre-meditated, David is certain.

The store has been busy for a Thursday. With the weather finally turning colder, people are coming in for more of the seasonal wares and starting their holiday shopping in earnest. By closing, David’s lower back and hips are tight from standing at the cash too long. Patrick, angel of a man that he is, must notice.

“David, why don’t you let me clean up the floor, and you count out the till?” he offers. He produces one of the bar stools they keep in back and plants it behind David, then runs a warm, broad palm back and forth over David’s lower back.

“Yes, yeah, that would be great, thank you,” David nods, exhaling into the comforting pressure of Patrick’s hand. He eases himself onto the stool, stretching his back a bit, and Patrick disappears into the back to grab the broom. He must link his phone to the Bluetooth while he’s back there, because one of his trademark sad white guy songs fills the store.

David listens for a moment, trying to place it. All overlong guitar intros still sound alike to him, but he’s been getting better at learning Patrick’s music. As they’ll soon be married, he figures he should at least be making an effort to be aware of the things his life partner is into. A man starts singing, something about stars and northern lights, but David couldn’t name him if his best cashmere sweater was on the line. Patrick comes back out, flashes David an absent smile, and starts tidying all the misplaced product out on the floor.

David’s nearly done closing out the till and Patrick’s moved onto sweeping when it happens. The song shifts from Dan Mangan or Matt Morris or whoever the fuck into one that David recognizes. A glance at Patrick’s back, the set of his shoulders, is all it takes for David to know it was intentional. Honestly? He should’ve been expecting something like this.

 _“There used to be a graying tower alone on the sea,”_ he hears Patrick start out. He’s singing softly, and if David wasn’t listening for it, he wouldn’t be able to make it out. Then Patrick turns around, adds a bit louder, _“Youuu became the light on the dark side of me.”_

“Okay, that’s quite enough,” David warns over the music.

 _“But did you know that when it snows,”_ Patrick raises his hands, one still clutching the broom handle, and swoops them back down in a showy performative move. He balls his hands into fists and brings them to his chest, crooning the next line with such earnest anguish that David would be moved if he didn’t know it was all an elaborate attempt to exasperate the fuck out of him. _“My eyes become large and the light that you shine can’t be seen?”_

“Got it, thank you,” David tries. “We don’t need to do the whole song.”

 _“Babayyy,”_ Patrick belts, flinging his arms out and dropping the broom straight on the hardwood. _“I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the gray. The more I get of you the stranger it feels, yeahhh.”_

While Patrick, frankly, nails the rest of the chorus, David rounds the counter and comes to a stop in front of him. He plants his hands on Patrick’s shoulders.

“I will give you one hundred dollars to stop this right now,” he says.

Patrick laughs and pulls him in. He’s a little breathless and he looks…he looks happy.

“You don’t have to pay me, David. I’ll quit. For now.”

“Forever,” David says emphatically.

“We’ll see.”

+++++

**Tracks 3-7**

Once he gets going, it’s difficult for Patrick to stop. Not that he tries to stop.

He spends some time researching songs that reference roses, assembling the ones he thinks have legs for torturing David into a playlist. He wasn’t lying when he said he knew of several off the top of his head, but the research helps him remember a couple he’d forgotten about and discover a few new favorites.

He doesn’t always play the songs for David like he did that first time in the store, preferring to perform them a capella when David is at his most unsuspecting.

 _“I beg your pardon; I never promised you a rose garden,”_ Patrick croons at him during one tense moment when they’ve been arguing about wedding stuff. Again.

“Don’t start this,” David cuts him off after the first two lines, but the corner of his mouth is quirking up in a way that suggests he’s sufficiently charmed, so Patrick lets it go.

A month or so later, he doesn’t even get through the first line of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” before David reaches out to press his lips together firmly, smushing them between the tips of his fingers, and utters a simple but definitive, “No.” 

It’s not their wedding night, but it’s pretty damn close when he decides to take a big risk and murmur “Bed of Roses” into David’s skin where he’s pressing him into the mattress, the only light in the room coming through the window from the parking lot security light outside. He’s surprised to make it all the way to the first chorus before David figures out what he’s doing. He must be better at distracting David in bed than he thought.

“Patrick Brewer,” he gasps indignantly. “You can sleep on the couch if you’re going to insist on continuing this… this persecution!”

“Okay, David,” Patrick chuckles, crawling his way back up the bed to offer an apology kiss. “No more singing.”

“Thank you.” David’s hands find their way onto Patrick’s shoulders like always, and Patrick knows he’s forgiven.

“Tonight,” he amends, just to hear David’s frustrated little groan.

A few weeks after that, he gets through most of “Where the Wild Roses Grow” before David turns to him and says disapprovingly, “This song is about _murder_ , Patrick. What message is this meant to be sending?”

They haven’t been in the new house long when David actually lets him get all the way through “Rose’s Turn,” providing emphatic applause when he’s finished and calling the song “iconic” and Patrick’s living room rendition “inspired.”

It’s getting harder to catch David off guard, Patrick realizes. He’ll have to step up his game.

+++++

**Track 8**

“Honey! Dinner!”

David chuckles to himself as he sets the table. Who would have thought it? Here he was, David Rose, cooking a meal _from scratch_ for himself and his _husband_ to share in their _home_.

Well, he had boiled the pasta himself and opened the jar of sauce and sautéed and seasoned the veggies that he’d added to it. He had both taken and baked the take and bake loaf of garlic bread from the store. He’d even prepped a cute little side salad in his fun little farmhouse serving bowl. Somedays he really was struck by how fucking domestic his life had become. How domestic _he’d_ become. It was nice.

“Patrick! Dinner is ready!” he tries again. And okay, the domesticity of having a husband who spends way too much time fiddling around in the garage is maybe not his favorite, but even that’s sweet in its way. David sighs and slips out of his indoor loafers and into his outdoor loafers to go fetch his husband. 

As soon as he sets foot in the garage, his ears are accosted with the sound of, _ugh_ , electric guitar, and his husband appears in front of him, pointing at him and dancing with all the grace of a character from a mid-century stop-motion animated special.

 _“Wanna tell you a story, ‘bout a woman I know,”_ Patrick sings along with the radio.

“Oh, we’re doing this again.” David lets his voice drip with all the disdain and judgment he can muster and bites the inside of his cheek. His husband shows no sign of stopping, though, so he leans against Patrick’s workbench and crosses his arms over his chest. “Delightful.”

_“She ain’t exactly pretty, ain’t exactly small.”_

“Hey!” David interjects. “Who are you singing about right now?”

 _“You could say she’s got it all! Never had a woman, never had a woman like you.”_ Patrick reaches for him and David parries.

“I mean, obviously.”

 _“Doin’ all the things, doin’ all the things you do.”_ Patrick follows after him, and David points a warning finger in his face.

“Things that I’ll never do again if you keep this up…”

_“But you give it all you got, weighin’ in at nineteen stone.”_

“Oh my god!” David waves both hands emphatically. “Is it appropriate to talk about someone’s weight in a song?” 

Patrick falls into the chorus then, which is really repetitive? It’s just him singing _“whole lot of Rosie”_ over and over, though he seems into it. He reaches out again, and David lets himself be caught this time. 

“Okay, this song is obviously about a woman,” he says over the music and the _wholelottarosies_. “And she sounds voluptuous, so are you saying I’m voluptuous? This whole comparison is confusing?”

 _“Oh, honey, you can do it.”_ Patrick is leaning into him now, and he seems to lose the tempo of the song a little bit. _“Do it to me all night long.”_ He wraps his arms tighter around David’s waist and sort of nuzzles into David’s neck.

 _“Only one who can turn me,”_ he murmurs, _“only one can turn me on.”_

He sort of fades out after that, and then it’s just the two of them swaying slowly in the garage, Patrick’s face pressed into David’s neck, AC/DC still rocking in the background.

“You accidentally got turned on for real, didn’t you?” David asks.

“Yeah, I played myself,” Patrick admits, voice muffled.

David hums, and Patrick tightens his grip further where he’s wrapped around him.

“It’s a sexy song, David,” he says, lips pressed against that spot just below David’s ear where he always parks himself. 

“Well, think of baseball math because dinner is ready, and I’m not letting it get cold.” David punches the old stereo off and drags his now petulant husband inside.

+++++

**Track 9**

It’s their first open mic night as a married couple, and Patrick is nervous. The song had seemed like a great idea, when it first occurred to him. A way to continue teasing his husband and (hopefully) sweep him off his feet by way of a grand romantic gesture at the same time. A way to share this little inside joke of theirs with the whole town while still keeping it mostly between the two of them.

Okay, so maybe not the whole town. The fifteen or so residents of the town who’d braved the latest cold snap to cram themselves into the folding chairs scattered among the display tables.

Point is. It had seemed to Patrick, at the time, like a way to _win_.

Except now that he’s tuning his guitar in the back room, he’s worried he’s maybe taking it too far. Patrick is usually a good judge of how far is too far in these little games they’re always playing. They both are. That’s why it works, and it’s part of the thing that makes it so fun.

If Patrick’s judged right, then he’s going to get David to give him that look. That amused-slash-annoyed look. That _I can’t believe you (derogatory)_ and _I can’t believe you (affectionate)_ look. The one he’d given Patrick at their first open mic, then again at their wedding, halfway through Patrick’s tearful yet passable Mariah performance. He’d given Patrick that look, and Patrick had thought to himself: _Got him._

He thinks maybe he’ll always be chasing that look from David. He hopes he never stops chasing it, anyway. So if he can get that look tonight, then he’ll have made the right call.

And if he doesn’t get that look tonight? If, instead, he gets David’s ‘I’m going to act like this is fine but it’s not and I’m not going to want to talk about why but you’re going to make me and we’ll both end up in tears but with an ultimately deeper understanding of one another’ look? God help him.

So, yes, he’s nervous. But he didn’t practice another song.

“Welcome back to Rose Apothecary, everybody,” he says into the mic. “Are we ready to kick this thing off?” There’s a smattering of applause and a general murmuring of approval. He can’t immediately see David in the crowd, but he knows he’s there. Like you know your lungs are there even when you’re not consciously thinking of breathing.

“Okay, well, I’m going to start us off with something short and sweet. As always, this is for David.”

That’s when he spots him, leaning against the counter like he had that first time, and something in the purse of his lips and the expectant tilt of his head gives Patrick courage. This was probably a good idea.

 _“Hold me close and hold me fast,”_ he starts, letting the notes come slow and smooth, not trying to embellish at all. It’s right just as it is. _“This magic spell you cast, this is la vie en rose.”_

He spots the moment David realizes what he’s doing, the slow shake of his husband’s head, the way he tilts his chin up. When he was first getting to know David, he might have read it as annoyance. Irritation. But he knows better now.

_“When you kiss me heaven sighs, and though I close my eyes, I see la vie en rose.”_

Patrick spares a glance at the rest of the audience as he continues through the song, and, sure enough, there’s Ronnie in the front row, dabbing discreetly at her eyes. Patrick’s not dumb enough to think she comes to these things for any other reason than to support David. But she’s definitely liking the song. He vows not to be too smug about it the next time he sees her. He catches David’s eye again just in time for the big finish.

_“Give your heart and soul to me, and life will always be… la vie en rose.”_

Even across the muted light of the store, he can tell David’s crying. It takes a minute, but he joins in with everyone else clapping for Patrick, and Patrick laughs softly into the mic, relieved.

 _Got him_ , he thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> Patrick's 🌹 Playlist:  
> 1\. [Every Rose Has Its Thorn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2r2nDhTzO4)  
> 2\. [Kiss from a Rose](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMD2TwRvuoU)  
> 3\. [Rose Garden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXHsWBKKNbI)  
> 4\. [The Yellow Rose of Texas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izz0_qEl_-E)  
> 5\. [Bed of Roses](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvR60Wg9R7Q)  
> 6\. [Where the Wild Roses Grow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXA-9mWGCXk)  
> 7\. [Rose’s Turn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YSG1EXSOP8)  
> 8\. [Whole Lotta Rosie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAOwDZoWXRI)  
> 9\. [La Vie en Rose (this is the legendary Edith Piaf version)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nCZHF1U1g8). I'm imagining Patrick's cover more in [this ballpark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDooAeN3sGo).
> 
> Title is from Lenka. 
> 
> This is my 11th published work since I started writing about these idiots back in June!!! What a PHENOMENAL handful of months it's been getting to exist in this fandom. To anyone who has read, kudos'd, commented, recced, etc. anything I've written this year, THANK YOUUUU.


End file.
